Practice felt great this morning. Free of all of my post-traumatic presentation stress disorder. VBG gave me a serious crank in Marichyasana D, and the feeling in my shoulders and upper back made me flash on those experiments kids do in science class. Where you soak a chicken bone in vinegar and it gets all rubbery. Can’t quite remember what the point of that was, but do remember the smell, and also the beautiful curve of the bone.

Anyhow, I had rubbery chicken bones galore in my upper back and shoulders. Like everything that I go around keeping tight and samskara-ish came loose and mooshed up all together. A kind of chaos of how I usually perceive my physical self. I knew about this tendency to restrict the perception of my body to specific habituated modes. My shoulder girdle goes through the world in a way I think of as “me,” and it involves certain motion and certain lack of motion. Tendencies.

Lately been very conscious during practice of mula bandha, or more specifically, the “O” that the sit bones and pubis describe, as a kind of gyroscope. Thinking about the O’s relationship to the ground and then to the rest of the pose has been endlessly fascinating. I have no idea if I am learning anything. I guess it is a kind of nimitta, a vision. Of inside, but it isn’t really me.

Yeah, okay, this narrative is devolving. Stuff I can’t describe in words, and yet here I am, still trying.

Aside from the vision of a moon-white gyroscopic internal O, practice also included great comfort in Ustrasana. The British Director and Sanskrit Scholar noted that the more horizontal backbend that I was looking to cultivate, a la Arjuna (and yes, this is in preparation for a smoother kapotasana), is coming along. Thanks to intense adjustment from VBG. The British Director asked if it hurt. Not really, I can honestly say. It is intense, but it doesn’t hurt. It feels frightening, I think, because it challenges my belief about how I can move. Hence my pleasure with the chicken bone feeling this morning: my beliefs are getting rubbery.